SALFIT, Israeli bulldozers today razed Palestinian structures in Bruqin town, west of the West Bank city of Salfit, according to local sources.

They said that Israeli forces escorted an army bulldozer into the town, where the heavy machinery tore down an agricultural room belonging to the town mayor, Faed Sabra, in addition to a shack belonging to Ziyad Barakat, located in al-Baq‘an area, north of the town.

Meanwhile, the soldiers escorted an army bulldozer to the al-Bireh city neighborhood of Jabal Tawil, where the heavy machinery demolished a 70-square-meter agricultural room belonging to Mustafa Salem, reducing it to rubble.

Israel demolishes Palestinian houses and structures almost on a daily basis as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.

Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in Jerusalem and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.

In contrast, Israel argues that building within existing colonial settlements is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of settlers. Therefore, it much more easily gives over 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency